After hearing Su Qingluan's suggestion, Yang nodded quickly, "That's great!" Turning to Sun Guixiang, who was washing another pile of radishes, she said, "Sister, call your husband over. Let's have dinner at my house today!"
Sun Guixiang quickly waved her hands after hearing this: "That's impossible! We'll probably be busy all afternoon. Who's going to prepare dinner?"
Su Qingluan smiled and said, "Aunt, don't you want to try my cooking?"
"Oh, you little girl, I just said that casually!" Sun Guixiang shook her head. "There are seven people in our two families, six adults in total. It's not your turn as a child to cook!"
Then she turned to look at Yang: "Big sister, you too, I just said that casually, why are you really willing to make your daughter suffer so much? With so many people, are you really going to tire her out?"
Yang was at a loss for words: "Why don't we finish cutting these radishes quickly?" In fact, Yang had complete confidence in her eldest daughter's cooking skills. She thought to herself, sister, even if the two of us were tied together, we might not be as good at cooking as my eldest daughter.
But even though she thought so, she couldn't say it out loud. She thought her daughter was good in every way, but she also knew that all housewives who spent all day around the stove always had one or two "specialties" and were more or less "arrogant" about their cooking skills.
If she spoke her heart out so bluntly, Sun Guixiang, with her straightforward and generous personality, would not bear a grudge or cut off all ties with her, but she would probably still feel dissatisfied.
Instead of making people uncomfortable, it’s better to just interrupt them.
But she felt sorry for her daughter and didn't want her to be too tired, so she just said to Su Qingluan, "Let's just make something simple today. If it's too rich, I guess your aunt won't be able to come next time."
Sun Guixiang continued to persuade: "Daya, don't listen to your mother, it's not your turn to cook anyway!"
Su Qingluan saw that Sun Guixiang was too embarrassed to let a junior like her cook, and Yang Shi didn't want her daughter to be too tired, so she thought for a moment and said, "How about we eat hot pot together?"
"That's great!" Sun Guixiang stood up. "I'll have my husband go to his second uncle's house and ask for half a lamb—oh, sister, don't be polite. His second uncle is a shepherd, and the lamb there is very tender and fresh. I'll have my husband pick out a lamb!"
Having said that, he broke free from Yang's hand and ran home.
Su Qingluan turned to Yang and said, "Mother, it just stopped raining. I took Xuanhe and Xueyan to the hillside behind to see if there were any mushrooms."
So Su Qingluan carried a bamboo basket and took her brother and sister to the back mountain.
When the hours of Wei and Shen intersected, Su Qingluan returned with her younger brother and sister, carrying half a box of mushrooms.
At this time, the small courtyard has become completely lively -
Yang and Sun Guixiang had already cut most of the radish, placing the little finger-thick slivers high in the wooden basin. Su Qingluan quickly "rescued" a small one from the few remaining radishes and weighed it, "I'll slice it and eat it later!"
Yang smiled and said, "Okay, as long as we finish eating everything, we can eat anything!"
Su Guangfu and Uncle Li next door were not idle either. Su Guangfu was building circles of stoves with earthen bricks and placing firewood and charcoal inside. It was obvious that he was going to make a fire here later.
Uncle Li next door was hanging a piece of lamb on the kitchen door and skillfully deboning the lamb one knife at a time. At his feet were two wooden barrels containing the deboned lamb and lamb bones.
Su Qingluan went up to greet everyone one by one, and then joined the ranks of "preparing hot pot".
She asked her brother and little sister to go to the backyard to pick some vegetables and wash them along with the mushrooms. She then asked Uncle Li for some lamb bones, planning to make them into a soup base for hot pot later.
Su Qingluan put all the lamb bones into the largest steamer in the house, added water that could cover all the bones, added ginger slices, green onion segments, and a spice bag with various seasonings. After lighting the fire, she no longer cared about the soup and let it simmer.
When the blood foam on the surface of the mutton soup gradually accumulated into a thick brown layer floating on the surface of the soup and swirling up and down, Su Qingluan immediately used a soup spoon to carefully skim out this layer of blood foam.
After repeating this process for about ten times, only the mutton bone broth, which gradually turned milky white, remained in the pot. Su Qingluan then squatted down, pressed the baffle of the vent, and slightly lowered the heat.
Then, Su Qingluan gradually began to slice all the ingredients into slices as thin as cicada wings.
The knife that Mr. Xu gave her was indeed extraordinary. Su Qingluan felt that when she used the knife, she was as flexible and free as if she were using her own arm.
With good knives, Su Qingluan's knife skills can be more clearly highlighted.
However, she did not do this to show off her knife skills. It was because when making hot pot, if the ingredients are cut into thin slices to the point of being transparent, they can be cooked through with just a light dip in the hot pot.
Such ingredients can be eaten instantly, ensuring the hygiene of the food while retaining its tender texture. It avoids heating the ingredients - especially meat - for too long for fear of not being cooked, which would result in a tough taste.
Thinking of this, Su Qingluan then cut the radish into slices as thin as white paper.
However, considering that radish is a vegetable that loses water very easily, Su Qingluan soaked the cut radish in water.
By the way, Uncle Li from next door not only brought half a lamb, but also hunted a wild rabbit from somewhere, which was also eaten up.
So Su Qingluan cut it into thin slices and placed it on the plate like mutton.
After cutting so much meat and radishes, even someone like Su Qingluan felt a little tired.
Fortunately, the mushrooms and other vegetables didn't need to be cut, just washed. However, by the time Su Qingluan finished processing all the ingredients, it was already evening.
In fact, according to modern time, this time is not past five in the evening, but it was not considered very early in ancient times.
However, at this time, Sun Guixiang and Yang had just finished pickling the radish strips, and the two men were using all their strength to squeeze out the moisture that the salt had absorbed from the radish.
Yang and Sun Guixiang gathered around the "temporary stove" in the middle of the yard, slowly lighting the charcoal inside and letting the flame burn more and more vigorously.
Su Qingluan originally thought that although the soup base made from mutton bone broth was delicious, it contained much less dipping sauce and was probably not as delicious as modern seasonings.
Unexpectedly, both the Su and Li families prepared a full range of seasonings.
From chive sauce, fermented tofu, soybean sauce, to sesame sauce, onion, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, aged vinegar and so on, there is everything.
There were even some dipping sauces that Su Qingluan had never tried before, which opened the door to a new world for her.
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